I also have taught on the book of Revelation at our church, Stonebriar Community Church, and our congregation just loved it. That was tough sledding. It was not only good for them, but it was good for me. I had to guard against extremes. I had to let the text say what it was saying and then help people understand the symbolism of it and all that. That’s hard work. I still say that people love book studies probably more than any other type of series, at least in bible churches and community churches I’m a part of. They love the study of letters of the New Testament or books of the Bible probably as much as anything they ever hear. They always are excited about that. So I’m drawn to that.

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Preaching: When I interviewed you the last time, you were just in the process of leaving Fullerton and going to Dallas Seminary as President. After seven years as President at DTS, you are now back in the pastorate. As you look back to Fullerton and compare that pastorate to where you are now, do you see differences in terms of your preaching or your approach to pastoral service?

Swindoll: There was a window of opportunity that opened in the presidency at Dallas Seminary that would not be open again for me. And as I said to you back then, I am the most surprised guy on the planet. If my mother had been alive, she would have been surprised, but she was gone by then. But I was the most surprised that they would seek me out. I went to Dallas Seminary under the false assumption that what they really, really wanted in a president was an intellectual — another person that was really academically oriented — and that’s not me. I love academics. I love being around people who are theologically astute and I am stimulated by those conversations, but given a circle of friends we probably will not deal with the finer points of sanctification or redemption. Though I could communicate in that area, that’s not what turns my crank.

When I got to the seminary I realized what God had in mind is that they needed a shepherd to guide the school, and that was my role for those seven years. All the way through, even in the interview time, I told the board and the officers of the board who were interviewing me, “You need to know something: I am a pastor at heart, I am a shepherd.” In fact I would say to them: “Are you sure? Are you really sure you want to pursue this?” And I honestly would not have been surprised if they’d said, “The more we think about it, we’re not sure.”

What they said was, “You’re the one we want.” Then I said, “OK, you need to also know, I’ve got to be pastoring a church to find fulfillment.” They asked me if I would hold back in being involved as a pastor or even starting a church for at least two or three years, so I could really give myself to the tasks that were in front of me. I said ‘absolutely’. In fact, I did not pursue anything along that line until over four years of being there. I’d gone (to Dallas) in the spring of ‘94, and in October of ‘98 we met with a group of people in the little city of Frisco, which is just to the north of Plano, which is the city north of Dallas. So we’re kind of double north of Dallas. It turned into a group of people interested in starting a church. I did not have that in mind when we started, not seriously. And then it grew into the formation of a body of people and then ultimately the establishing of a church, the buying of property, the building of a building. By the summer of 2001, I had stepped aside (at DTS). Then they pursued and called Mark Bailey to be my successor. So that is kind of how it unfolded.